Heating and bending Eheim/rubber hose for Co2 reactor

[Plant Man]

I had DIYed a Co2 reactor from a 10” Python but it was on my canisters intake.

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Some small bubbles were getting into the canister and disturbing trapped debris that was then getting kicked out into the tank after every bottle change for about a day. I was trying to figure out how I could do this, so I could move the reactor to the filter exhaust.

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I tried to heat and bend acrylic pipe with boiling water but this just caused it to kink. Then I tried Eheim hose but it kinked after being bent only so far. I then tried the boiling water on the hose, wrapped it around a plastic lid that was shorter then the hose was and put a heavy book on top to force it back to a round shape while the hose cooled. It worked!

My new reactor for the filters exhaust, no more bubbles going through the filters.

I used the acrylic for the straight pieces.

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[Plant Man]

before and after boiling

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[Piscine]

Good pictures!

[Plant Man]

Good pictures!

Thanks,

I think you could use this technique to shape any rubber hose. I'm going to try just for fun to see how sharp I can curve a piece of hose.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Interesting method. Can't say I would have though of doing it that way. Personally I find Rex Grigg's reactor much easier to make.

[Plant Man]

Interesting method. Can't say I would have though of doing it that way. Personally I find Rex Grigg's reactor much easier to make.

Rexx's reactor is actually much more complicated then mine. I do like his design very much! But I wanted to be able to see what was happening in my reactor, so I made it out of clear material. As part of this hobby I get great enjoyment from creating my own solutions to problems I encounter. I do get inspiration from the net but I like to create stuff of my own design.

Rexx’s design is very safe and extremely well put together. It requires 9 pieces of PVC that are not clear and requires a very toxic adhesive to assemble. It is also not self explanatory; many people build it but do not know how to correctly install it. Because they don’t know how it works. LOL

Mine is, well, mine. It requires only 4 pieces (less then half Rexx’s design needs), 2 Python green caps a 10” or longer clear Python tube and an air hose link connector. The biggest difference with mine is I’ve also included the hose work in the picture, that is needed to flip the flow over so I could install it straight onto my exhaust, without any extra hose/PVC work. People can implement it anyway they like thought. Many people get confused with Rexx’s design because they don’t actually understand how reactors are supposed to work and implement it incorrectly by not installing it right. They install it so the flow is running up though it instead of down. LOL

I believe you are a casualty of this and needed to fix your reactor after you installed it incorrectly. Rexx should explain its installation better, many people including yourself don’t really grasp from his build instructions how it works. Even thought it is pretty easy to understand unfortunately many still don’t get it.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

I believe you are a casualty of this and needed to fix your reactor after you installed it incorrectly. Rexx should explain its installation better, many people including yourself don’t really grasp from his build instructions how it works. Even thought it is pretty easy to understand unfortunately many still don’t get it.

And just how did you come to that erroneous conclusion??? For your information, I did implement it correctly, the flow in my reactor was flowing down and not up. Rexx's instructions were plenty clear for me.

[Plant Man]

And just how did you come to that erroneous conclusion??? For your information, I did implement it correctly, the flow in my reactor was flowing down and not up. Rexx's instructions were plenty clear for me.


My point was not intended to make anyone look bad. I'm just saying that Rex's design is twice as complicated as mine. It does require, over twice the pieces to build. And "some" people don't understand it or know how it is properly installed.